Premillennialism

RV110-02

The centuries-old battle is the battle of who is the lord of human culture and human society. That battle over the lordship of human society is coming to a climax. Since the days of Nimrod and the Tower of Babel, fallen man has been systematically and deliberately trying to ignore God, and make himself the final authority over human society. So, man has been trying to structure a way of life where God is completely eliminated, and a way of life where God's thinking is not included. Man wants to set up his own economic system; he wants to set up his own moral system; and, he wants to set up his own concepts of equality and of justice all the way down the line in a society in which God is eliminated.

Jesus Christ is Lord

Mankind's past efforts to claim ownership over human culture have been very subtle, but that's not the case today. Today, the battle is more open. Today, man is openly pursuing, with a determination, his objective of declaring himself lord over his own life in every respect apart from God.

It's possible to do that in the United States because we are now so far into the post Christian era that Americans are no longer horrified over the concept of rejecting God and rejecting the Bible. The religion of secular humanism is the substitute, and it is determined to silence all opposition from biblical Christianity. Secular humanism does not like to be opposed or exposed.

Today, the eyes of all the humanists in the nation are on the current persecution of Christian schools in the state of Nebraska. There is an article by Gary North that will update you on that serious matter today. The question is: who owns the children in a family? Does the family own those children, as God says, or does the state own those children? Who is lord over those children? The government (the state); or God, through those parents? All of the humanists of the country and the departments of education in various states are on hold while they observe to see what the outcome will be in Nebraska. Tyranny is being exercised against pastors and educators and parents, who insist that they are the final authority over their own children, and their children have been given to them by God as a heritage from God, and that the state is not the final voice.

It depends upon whichever direction the outcome will be in Nebraska, and the courts are moving in favor of the state. That will set the pattern for all over this country. The secular humanist and the government schools are embarrassed and humiliated by the Christian school movement; by the accomplishments of the Christian school; and, by the power of the Christian school educational system on the minds of children, and on their moral concepts. The Christian school movement is taking people back to the concepts of the Word of God, and establishing Christ as Lord of human culture. The secular humanists and the government schools hate that with a vengeance, and it humiliates them to see people leaving them to go to the most hated system they can think of – system based upon the Bible. So, keep track of what goes on in Nebraska. It will in time affect us all. The battle is simply over who is sovereign in human society: God; or, the man that God created.

People today are being forced to take sides openly with the objectives of the state religion of humanism, or the objectives of biblical Christianity. You cannot be neutral today anymore. Our Christian brethren in communist countries suffer unbelievable agonies because they chose to proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord instead of the state. I find it very pathetic to hear American Christians complaining about their lot in life in the midst of freedom; in the midst of possessions; in the midst of luxuries; and, in the midst of privacy. Most of us are completely out of touch with what our brothers and our sisters in communist countries suffer for the fact that they have stood up and said, "Christ is Lord: not the party; not the Communist Party; and, not the state system." We don't know what it is to suffer. But you better take a cue and become aware of what real suffering is that God's grace has preserved you from because you live in a nation which still has a heritage of some Christian objectives and some Christian understanding. You have nothing to complain about in your worst conditions. We have nothing to compare to what Christians are suffering who have to take the stand that Christ is Lord at great personal expense.

How little we know of the cost indeed of making Christ Lord! But our Big Brother government, I can assure you, is planning to change all that. Remember that 1984 is here as of this day. Christians are increasingly going to be forced then to respond to the efforts of American society to eliminate the divine rules of God's authority which makes Christ Lord of society.

Responses

Human history deals only with man's earthly experiences, but as we pointed out, man has a post-earthly history as well. There is a future for the human race beyond the earthly sphere. Therefore, a man needs a philosophy of life which ties the earthly era to the post-earthy phase.

Postmillennialism's philosophy was that society was becoming more godly, with evil diminishing, and it would ultimately culminate in the return of Jesus Christ to the earth to usher in eternity. Well, the truth of the matter is that the world is becoming worse. Postmillennialism's hope that the world was going to get better and the influence of the gospel has been proven false.

Religious liberalism proclaimed the social gospel, which centered on improving the standard of living on earth. Liberalism came along and said, "What the Bible is all about is making life better for man on earth." It didn't connect it to an earthly relationship beyond this sphere.

Science came along and expected its discoveries to improve human the human condition on earth, and to bring about peace and prosperity. The future of human society, however, which is portrayed in the book of the Revelation does not confirm any of these optimistic views of man's earth history. Revelation describes in detail how God will finally terminate man's arrogant efforts to proclaim himself the lord of creation.

The spread of socialism under communism has already doomed billions of human beings to scarcity; to privation; to fear; to loss of freedom; and, to death itself. 1984 is for them already a reality.

So, what then is the true view of the relationship between life now on earth and that beyond? It is important that you understand this relationship before we get into the study of the tribulation era, so that you will understand what the biblical position is relative to life now, and where history is moving – what God intends to do with us now in terms of what is before us in the future. Otherwise, you get a totally distorted picture, and we expose ourselves, as biblical Christians, to the attack that we are pessimists without any hope for the future.

The Results of Human Lordship

So, people were set adrift, with no anchor for their souls, and no authoritative guide for living. They did not solve the social ills in spite of enormous amounts of human good effort. The inevitability of human progress that they promised has not been realized. The social gospel is a bomb in terms of solving society's problems on earth, and certainly it's a bomb in terms of leading mankind to eternal life in heaven after death. Those who live by the biblical work ethic are the ones whose social needs and problems are solved. That's the only way that society's problems have ever been solved – by people applying themselves to dominating this earth by their personal efforts.

So, religious liberalism has not panned out. Science hasn't done any better. Science had great hopes and expectations that it would bring peace and prosperity to mankind. Instead, the scientist feels very guilty over the use of its discoveries. Man's sin nature takes the advancements and the discoveries of science, and pervert's them to self-destruction.

Most scientists, of course, are not born again people, so they have no idea in the world as to where humanity is ultimately going with these scientific discoveries. The truth of the matter is that everything that science discovers is preparatory for the Millennial Kingdom. That's where we're going with all those things. But the scientists today, because he's ignorant of Bible doctrine principles, tries to control man's destructive nature with new ways of making man his own lord, and new ways of following man's reason as to how man should be controlled, rather than going back to the Bible and saying, "Look, this is what the Bible teaches about the way we are, and where we're going, and this is how we should act."

In the "Review of the News," ... there was a little comment concerning Dr. Petr Beckmann. Dr. Beckmann is one of the most outstanding nuclear scientists of our day. He is a refugee from Czechoslovakia – a man who has known the dark side of the human experience of the loss of freedom. In discussing Dr. Beckmann's view concerning the ABC television program "The Day After," the "Review of the News said, "Describing ABC's 'The Day After' as a sick fantasy on nuclear war, Professor Petr Beckmann tells us that the mass media is giving splashy coverage to the hunches and speculation of ex-scientists for preemptive surrender, represented by spokesmen such as Paul Erlich, whose real expertize is butterflies. Dr. Beckmann says, 'Pampered props like Erlich and Carl Sagan, who have seen the horrors of war only in comic strips and on the boob tube, are undercutting those who want to prevent war. The only way of preventing it is to have the will to resist, and the capacity to win."

I don't know whether Dr. Beckmann is a Christian or not, but he certainly has struck a biblical principle. If there is one doctrine relative to warfare which is clear in the Bible, this is one that is. The way you keep peace is by being so powerful that your enemy does not dare to attack you. If he does, you are so powerful that you immediately and overwhelmingly, without reservation, destroy him and his capacity to make war, and peace is immediately reestablished. That is biblical principle. So, science is governed by men who just don't know the Bible. They don't know where history is going. They don't know how to analyze what is taking place in our day today.

Neo-Orthodoxy and Existentialism

The leaders of these groups see little relationship between human history now and the eternal kingdom of God beyond. They just ignore it. What one does on earth is seen as having no effect on his future. So, both in neo-orthodoxy and in existentialism, the result is: "So, what's the use of being good? So, what's the use of trying? So, who cares?" They are extremely pessimistic and very depressing.

The Three Views of the Millennium

So, mankind's only hope for the amillennialist is, "Forget the earth. It's doomed; it's evil; it's bad; and, it's going to get worse. The only hope is out in eternity with Christ. That is not what we're going to find as we study the book of the Revelation. We're not going to find that Jesus Christ is suddenly going to come back, and there's going to be one great big judgment day, and everybody's going to be gathered together, and separated sheep from goats: some to heaven; and, some to hell – and eternity begins. That is wrong. There is a future for this earth after Jesus Christ returns. Human history for the amillennialist is simply seen as a preparatory foyer for the eternal post-earthly era. The amillennialist says that our life on earth is just a weigh station, and it therefore does not carry great significance, so what you do now on this earth is really not important.

That's where that comes to, and that's wrong. It's enormously important what we do on earth now. And evangelical biblical Christians are waking up to the fact that they better be in politics; they better be in government; and, they better be out there fighting the government schools and the government systems all the way down the line, or the misery is going to be compounded. And the reason we fight it is because we are preparing for the world of tomorrow – a tremendously different kind of new world that is going to come through the travail and the birth pangs of the tribulation era. It does not simply end in eternity. It ends in a whole new earthly structure of life. So, human earth life is not just steadily degenerating and leading nowhere, finally to be abandoned for some life in eternity apart from earth. Earth life is leading somewhere very specific.

Premillennialism

Premillennialism, of course, does reject the view that humanism and religious liberalism have promoted that mankind is getting better. Premillennialism does take the position that the earth and that human culture is going to become more degenerate; that people are going to become worse; and, that society is going to become more terrible. That's why we are often accused of being pessimists. But the reason we say that that's where culture is going is because that's where the Bible tells us it's going.

It rejects also the despair and the hopelessness of both existentialism and of the neo-orthodoxy. Premillennialism places great value and importance upon man's earth history as the foundation for God's ultimate objective of the millennial earth. In other words, what we are doing now in earth history is preparing the ground for millennial earth history. Earth history has a direct connection, ultimately, in eternity too, with the new heaven and the new earth.

Dispensations

In each of these four great categories, there is a breakdown of specific variants of lifestyle. The era of the gentiles, for example, began with Adam and Eve. That was a first division of the dispensation of the gentiles. And things came to a termination. Then there was a progression to where people acted according to their conscience; then there was a progression; and, that came to an end. Finally, the whole thing came to a disastrous conclusion in the Noahic flood, and the authority of the gentile era came to an end in terms of the dispensational guide. Then God set up the Jews – a new program. He gave them a promise; they had a period of the patriarchs; they had the period of the Mosaic Law; and, finally, the Jews were removed as the prime element. Then the Christian came on the scene, and today we have the era of the church, and the grace emphasis of the body of Christ. That is going to be followed with the Christians being removed, and Christ becoming the main human element in the Millennial Kingdom.

So, the Bible reveals that, throughout history, God has made clear to human beings that there is a lifestyle. In each dispensation, there is a distinctive lifestyle. You can see that how Adam and Eve lived is a different lifestyle than how we live today. You can see that the way the Jews lived under the Mosaic system is different than the way that we as Christians live under today. Each dispensation had a lifestyle from God. It contains certain responsibilities and certain relationships. However, don't let anybody throw you off with the accusation that is sometimes made against dispensation in that they are teaching different ways of being saved. In each dispensation, everybody would was saved by believing God's promise of bringing a Savior. The Bible says, "Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness." Everybody is saved by the grace of God. Everybody is saved by accepting God's promise to provide a Savior, and trusting God to do that.

From God's viewpoint, each dispensation in human history is an advancement upon the previous one. Each one improves in terms of bringing mankind closer to the golden age of the Millennial Kingdom on earth. In each dispensation, however, man is shown to be a failure in governing his earth, and in seeking to provide eternal life. He's unable to solve the problem of securing absolute righteousness in each dispensation. He's unable to solve the problem of governing himself in a way that brings peace and prosperity. He cannot organize human society so that there is peace and prosperity on this earth. However, after each failure, God's grace carries him on to the next segment of the dispensational arrangements, and each one is going upward because it's moving toward the golden age. God's purpose for mankind is indicated, as a matter of fact, by the progress that man has already made in earthly history. The progress we have made foreshadows the ultimate realization of man's dreams in God's Millennial Kingdom.

For example, there are some diseases today which have been remarkably conquered. Science is doing its job. Some of us grew up in an era where, every summer, everybody would be alerted to the fact that the polio season has returned, and parents were concerned and watchful of their children for the evidences of the effects of polio. What parents thinks about polio today? When they finally discovered a way to solve the polio problem, my doctor used to say, "I've got to give you some shots now because you're around those school kids all the time, and I'm going to give you polio shots." It was a great terror in society. Most of you have no recollection of that, but it was a it was a constant fear that a child would come home and begin those terrifying symptoms that indicated that a paralysis was setting in, and that he had picked up polio at the swimming pool, or out there playing with the kids in the neighborhood, or from some other source. We have conquered some diseases. Why can't we have an area where we've knocked them all out?

Some wars have been prevented. Where nations have maintained military strength, aggressors have been inhibited. Some hazards to the environment and to our daily lives have been removed. Some pollutants which should not be permitted into our atmosphere and into our environment, even by industry have been brought properly under control. Some injustices to people have been uprooted. Some years have been added to the life span. We no longer stand around and say that if we've reached 40, we've reached a ripe old age. You realize that just a couple of generations ago, that's all it amounted to. Now we've added considerably to the lifespan through sanitation, physical exercise, and proper nutrition.

Some freedoms have been preserved. We preserve the private ownership of property, so we preserve some freedoms. So, ignorance has been rolled back. The Christian school movement has been overcoming the mediocrity of the government school system and its anchor point without God. Some improvements in our standard of living have been brought about. We have better clothing; we have better housing; we have better nutrition; and, we have more leisure. We have some improvements in political tyranny being restrained. Government has, in some respects, been retained as our servant, and not our master. Some social ills have been corrected. We have created more equal opportunity to exercise our unequal abilities. Some improvements have been made in human conduct and morality. The love for righteousness and the protection of the home that that gives is strong in the hearts of many Americans.

So, we could go on and on, reminding ourselves of the progress that we've made here on this earth. Well, why can't we have an age in human history where these and other proper and worthy aspirations will be fully realized? That's exactly where we're going. We don't cut off life, as premillennialist, at the end of our life era. When Christ returns, that does not end human history. It now makes it possible for human history to reach the epitome of its potential. God created man for happiness, and human history should in time attain the Creator's objective.

The book of Revelation describes the road to realizing these human needs and goals – not the frustrations of mankind's hopes and ideals. And I want you to remember that. As we study those terrible things, that isn't a road of frustration. That isn't a road of outmaneuvering man's hopes. It is the road to realizing them. So, we premillennialists are the only people who are really optimistic for the human race. We know it's going to go through the travail of some birth pangs in the tribulation, but we also know that what we have accomplished in earth history in the past is the pattern that will be continuing in the future when Christ returns.

Any theological or secular viewpoint which denies a future golden age on earth for mankind is to be rejected. That's the bottom line. Postmillennialism is wrong. Amillennialism is terribly wrong. And I don't care about the fact that the majority of churches and the majority of Christians that believe in the amillennial position. They're wrong. Man's earth history is not going to end by simply the return of Christ and the beginning of eternity. When Christ returns, it's to continue human history on this earth, and therefore it gives us value in what we are doing now. God's plan is not simply to terminate human history as a disaster, and to thrust mankind into an eternal state of blessing, but to take what man has produced, and to carry it to perfection. That is the objective that God has. The view that there is no future for human history flies in the face of all prophetic Scripture, and certainly of the noblest aspirations placed in man by God. Such a view of human history is actually irrational.

So, only the premillennial view provides a rational basis for an optimistic view of man's future. Don't let anybody tell you that we premillennialists are pessimists. The Bible, in its literal interpretation, teaches a millennial earthly kingdom under the Lord Jesus Christ. Even the amillennialists don't debate that. The amillennialists will say, "If you have to take the Bible literally, then, of course, God has made promises to the Jews that He has never fulfilled. He has to keep His Word. If it has to be literal, then there is still a future for the Jewish people." Certainly, God has never given them that land that He promised them. He gave them part of it, but they never had all of it. And certainly, they haven't possessed it forever. One promise after another has never been fulfilled. So, the amillennialists say, "Yes, if you take all of those Old Testament prophecies, and if you take those previews of God's plan for the Jewish people, and you say that you have to take those literally, then Christ price has got to come back and set up the kingdom on this earth."

However, the amillennialists say, "You don't have to take it literally. Those are to be spiritualized," lives, which is, of course, a pure assumption, and which has led ultimately to liberalism which has rejected the Bible entirely as a book of authority. Mankind goes indeed through the tribulation era as the final demonstration of the failure and the incapacity of man when he tries to make himself lord of human culture. That's the purpose of the tribulation. It is the final demonstration of what a failure man is when he tries to be his own lord.

But following the wrath of God against man's evil comes the glory of God's grace taking charge in human history. So, premillennialism declares that life, here and now on earth, is worthwhile in spite of the tragedy of sin. We are to work toward improving it. We are to work toward aligning it with what life will be like in the Millennial Kingdom. By the Word of God, man can structure his culture today to be compatible with the holiness of God, and to move life toward its millennial blessing. All of the genuine values of life in human history are going to be carried over into the Millennial Kingdom on this earth. No biblically compatible achievement of man today will be lost. It will go on in the millennium. No biblically compatible achievement in human society is going to be abandoned. It's going to be carried right over into the golden age. God does not intend to abandon the earth and mankind to Satan, and to the pitiful counterfeits that Satan has tried to impose on the human race. God is going to carry through. So, 1984 is here, but praise God, help is on the way.

Psalm 72

This is a description of the Millennial Kingdom with Christ ruling: "For He shall deliver the needy when he cries; the poor also; and, him that has no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy, and shall save the souls of the needy. He shall redeem their soul from deceit and violence, and precious shall be their blood in His sight. He shall live, and to Him shall be given of the gold of Sheba. Prayer also shall be made for Him continually, and daily shall He be praised. There shall be a handful of grain in the earth upon the top of the mountains. The fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon, and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth. His name shall endure forever. His name shall be continued as long as the sun, and men shall be blessed in Him. All nations shall call Him blessed. Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only does wondrous things. And blessed be His glorious name forever, and let the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen and amen."

Jesus Christ will be the King of the Whole Earth

So, Revelation 19:16 calls Jesus Lord of Lords and King of Kings. The government that he will exercise will be absolute authority. He will destroy everybody who opposes him (Psalm 2:9). The form of His government will be a theocracy upon this earth – God ruling. Revelation 19:15 tells us that the authority that Jesus Christ will exercise will be described as a rod of iron. If you step out of line, it's going to be like somebody with a steel bar came smashing down on you. You know what that means. That means that you're going to be cut down right there. Can you imagine a world where anybody who violates the moral code gets cut down like somebody who's been hit with a rod of iron in his hand? Can you imagine a world in which every injustice is met by striking down the perpetrator? It's almost hard to imagine human culture coming to that point, but that's where Jesus Christ as Lord intends to take it.

The Bible tells us that the world at that time will be filled with perfect righteousness. Absolute justice will be exercised. Isaiah 11:3-5 tell us that if anybody openly rebelled against the King, he will be stopped.

Also, Psalm 2:10-12 warn against feeling the divine wrath of the King. Instant judgments are going to provide a social environment that is unbelievable here on this earth. Children are going to be born in the millennium to those parents who enter the millennium in their human bodies (non-glorified bodies) – those who did not enter (as we Christians will have entered) with glorified bodies now free of the contamination of the sin nature. Those who are still in their human condition will have children, and these children will grow up, believe it or not, in the most perfect human environment that human history has ever seen. And at the end of the 1,000 years, some of them will rebel against Jesus Christ, the beneficent dictator of all the world.

Jerusalem will be the Capital of the World

The Whole World will know the Truth

The 12 Apostles will Rule the 12 Tribes of Israel

The Rebuilt Temple

Universal Peace

A New Spirituality

Prophecies, Dreams, and Visions from God

Joy

Good Health

All of this is possible because conditions will have been established under Jesus Christ for carrying human history to its epitome. We have started it today. We're in that human history now. Everything we are doing today that is biblical and worthwhile is going to go right out into the millennium, and it is going to be carried to ultimate fruition.

So, we premillennials are the only people who have the right perspective. We have the view that the Scripture presents. We have a proper view of being involved in human history now; of improving our conditions of life now; of fulfilling the cultural mandate given to Adam now; and, of knowing that what we do know is going to be carried out into the millennium.

So, now as we begin the study of the breaking of the seals, and the terrors that are going to be let loose, I want you to remember the background of materials that we have presented as to where these terrors were leading. They are not the end. They're simply a foyer carrying us into human history in its finest hour.

Dr. John E. Danish, 1982

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